1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a ground radiator configuring a ground radiation antenna and, more particularly, to a ground radiator that can simplify the structure of the ground radiation antenna.
2. Related Art Technology
An antenna corresponds to a device that can receive RF signals existing in the air into a user terminal or to a device that can transmit signals existing within the user terminal to the outside. In other words, the antenna is an essential element used in wireless communication. Recently, the mobile telecommunication terminals are required to be compact in size, lightweight, and equipped with a slimmer antenna structure. Also, as the data size being transmitted and received through wireless communication has become larger, mobile telecommunication terminals are now required to be equipped with antennae providing greater performance.
Accordingly, the antenna using ground radiation of the user equipment itself has been proposed as a means to satisfy such demands. More specifically, when the antenna is configured by using the ground of the user equipment as a portion of the radiator, the size of the radiator, which occupies the largest amount of space within the antenna, may be largely reduced, thereby contributing to the compact size of the antenna.
As described above, the European Patent No. 1962372 corresponds to the related art ground radiation antenna using the ground of the user equipment as the radiator. This patent proposes a technology for designing an antenna by using the ground of a user equipment, when the main body of the user equipment is configured of two sub-bodies that can be separated from one another, such as a folder-type user equipment, and when each sub-body is connected to one another by an electrical device, such as the FPCB.
According to the above-mentioned European Patent, in a folder-type user equipment having the main body configured of two separate sub-bodies, a capacitor for tuning a resonance frequency within an electric conductor, which is provided for an inductive coupling, is inserted between the two sub-bodies.
Therefore, the above-described antenna is disadvantageous in that the antenna could only be used in a user equipment configured of two separate sub-bodies (i.e., folder-type user equipments or mobile terminals). Moreover, since the length of the electric conductor for the inductive coupling is pre-decided to have a constant length, the structure of the antenna becomes more complex, and the range of devices to which the above-described antenna can be applied is also very limited.
FIG. 1 illustrates a general view showing an exemplary structure of a related art ground radiation antenna.
Referring to FIG. 1, the related art ground radiation antenna 10 is equipped with a radiating element 11, which is provided to support and facilitate the ground radiation, as shown in FIG. 1. More specifically, the radiating element 11 corresponds to a complex structure, which is configured of dielectric substances and conductor lines. Therefore, a high fabrication cost and a complex fabrication process are required in order to fabricate this complex structure. Furthermore, in addition to the radiating element 11, the ground radiation antenna is also configured of inductors and capacitors 12a, 12b, and 12c, which are provided to perform impedance matching and radiating performance control.
Accordingly, although the related art ground radiation antenna uses the ground as the radiating element, the antenna is still required to be provided with a separate radiating element, which has a complex structure. Therefore, the related art ground radiation antenna is disadvantageous in that a large fabrication cost is required in order to implement the above-described radiating element. Furthermore, as the structure of the radiator of the antenna becomes more complex, there lies a limitation in creating more slim-sized user equipments.
Most particularly, due to a lack of understanding in the essential phenomenon of ground radiation, and also due to the use of an unnecessarily complex structure in order to realize ground radiation, the fabrication cost increases and the fabrication process becomes more complicated in the related ground radiation antenna.